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Sumerians/Transcript
Transcript Text reads: The Mysteries of Life with Tim and Moby A robot, Moby, is sleeping on a couch and snoring. He is holding a comic book titled "Corvon the Barbarian." Moby dreams he's having dinner with Corvon and a boy, Tim. Moby is wearing a bear costume. TIM: Hey, hey Moby. What is best in life? MOBY: Beep. TIM: Wrong dude, wrong. It's crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women. Tim wakes Moby up. TIM: Hey, hey Moby. Mo-Moby, help me answer this letter. Tim reads from a typed letter. TIM: Dear Tim and Moby, Who were the Sumerians? From, Dawn. TIM: The Sumerians were the inhabitants of Sumer, one of the oldest known civilizations in history. An image shows a Sumerian man and woman standing near palm trees with a long brown building behind them. MOBY: Beep. TIM: Oh, a civilization is an advanced society with complex social, cultural, and political systems. The Sumerians arrived on the scene as early as 5300 BCE, and built a civilization that lasted more than three thousand years. It was located in an area of the world known as Mesopotamia. That was a plain between two rivers: the Tigris and the Euphrates, in what today is the country of Iraq. An map shows Sumer, the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, the Persian Gulf, and other areas in Mesopotamia. TIM: Those rivers flooded frequently, which made the land really fertile, but also swampy and difficult to live on. An animation shows palm trees and plants growing in a flooded area. TIM: Sometime around 3500 BCE though, the Sumerians figured out how to control the flooding. They developed something called irrigation. They constructed canals and artificial flood banks called levees. These structures diverted water, and helped them grow crops and raise livestock An image shows a bridge over water, canals, and levees. The land area has palm trees. MOBY: Beep. TIM: Right. Sumer was one of the earliest societies to develop agriculture. That's the cultivation of plants and animals for food and other uses. Before agriculture, hunger-gatherers depended on the natural world to provide for them. An animation shows a man with a club and a woman with a spear chasing a bull. TIM: But farming gave people a steady way to produce food. In Sumer, irrigation let farmers produce more food than they could eat themselves. Animations show a man standing next to a fenced-in bull and a cornucopia filled with fruits, vegetables, and legumes. TIM: As agricultural technology improved, the excess of food grew even larger. That allowed some people to make their living in ways other than farming. People began to specialize in pot making, metal working, building, baking, weaving, and sculpting. That's called division of labor, and it's the basis of any advanced civilization. An image shows a pot, a sword, a building, a bread, a rug, and a sculpture. TIM: It lets people concentrate on something other than where their next meal is coming from. And that leads to the rise of cities. MOBY: Beep. TIM: Sumerian city-states originally grew around simple temples. These temple structures later expanded into massive ziggurats, which were pyramids made of terraces linked by ramps and stairs. An animation shows a ziggurat. MOBY: Beep? TIM: Well, there were about a dozen independent Sumerian city-states. They shared a common language and culture but they weren't united under a single government or ruler. A map shows the city-states in Sumer: Babil, Kish, Nippur, Uruk, Larsa, Ur, Adab, Umma, and Lagash. TIM: Each city-state worshiped its own god or goddess, who they believed actually lived inside the ziggurat. An image shows a man on a couch holding a drink. He is sitting by a window and sunlight is shining on him. TIM: Each city-state was ruled by a king-like figure called an ensi, who doubled as the high priest. Ensis led the military, acted as judges, presided over religious ceremonies, and kept an eye on trade. An image shows an ensi. Spears, a coin, a ziggurat, and a balance scale are shown around him. MOBY: Beep. TIM: Well, the reason we know so much about the Sumerians was that they were among the first people to develop a written language. Writing came about as a way to keep a record of their trading with other city-states and cultures. An image shows a Sumerian man holding a stone with writing on it. There is another man standing in front of him with a bag over his shoulder. TIM: At first, they kept records using pieces of clay as tokens. These gradually developed into pictures and symbols that represented specific objects. By around 3100 BCE, the symbols had turned into a whole system of wedge-shaped marks and lines called cuneiform. An animation shows the clay tokens, then carved pictures and symbols. These marks are carved into stone, creating cuneiform. TIM: But writing wasn't their only bright idea. The Sumerians also codified the first system of written laws and a system of government to enforce them. Bronze was another major development. The Sumerians mixed tin and copper to make tools and weapons out of this sturdy metal. An image shows tools and weapons made of bronze. TIM: The Sumerians also came up with a number system based on sixty. They were the ones who divided the hour into sixty minutes, and the circle into threehundred and sixty degrees. We still do that today. An animation shows a clock next to a circle. The minute hand rotates around the clock. A shaded area rotates around the circle three-hundred and sixty degrees. TIM: They even invented the first wheeled vehicle, which meant that wagons could be used to carry loads for long distances. An image shows an ox-drawn cart with wooden wheels. MOBY: Beep. TIM: Well, neighboring groups eventually conquered them and absorbed a lot of Sumerian culture. Much of that culture was passed down to the ancient Greeks and Romans, and eventually on to us. An image shows a Sumerian man, an ancient Greek woman, an ancient Roman man, and a contemporary man. MOBY: Beep. Tim pulls a paper out of his bag. The paper has triangles, circles, and lines written on it. TIM: Right, which means we have the Sumerians to blame for my geometry homework.Category:BrainPOP Transcripts Category:BrainPOP Science Transcripts Category:BrainPOP Social Studies Transcripts